appointment
of a commission to inquire into the incidence and the levying of the
tithes, and endeavored to evade the question of appropriation, that is,
the question as to the right of Parliament to decide the manner in
which the revenues of the Irish State Church ought to be employed. The
tithe question itself was finally settled for England before it came to
be finally settled for Ireland. But its settlement involved no such
consequences to the English State Church as it did to the State Church
in Ireland. For our present purposes it is enough to record the fact
that the earliest clear indications of the national policy, which in a
later generation disestablished the Irish State Church, were given by
the first Reform Parliament. Meanwhile the controversy raised as to
the position of the Irish Establishment had had the effect of
disturbing Lord Grey, who did not like to be driven too rapidly along
the path of reform; of greatly angering the sovereign, who grumbled all
the more because he could not openly resist; and of dissatisfying men
like Ward and Grote and Lord Durham, and even members of the Cabinet
like Lord John Russell, who could not regard mere slowness as a virtue
when there was an obvious wrong to be redressed.

{221}

CHAPTER LXXVI.

"ONLY A PAUPER."

[Sidenote: 1832--The poor-law system]

The spirit of reform was impelling Lord Grey's Government in other
directions as well as in those which led to the abolition of slavery in
the Colonies, the improved conditions of the factory works and the
introduction of some better method for the collecting of tithes. The
state of the poor laws all over the country had long been attracting the
attention of thoughtful, philanthropic, and at the same time practical
men. The administration of relief to the poor was still conducted, up to
Lord Grey's reforming Administration, on the same general principle as
that which had been embodied in the famous statute of Queen Elizabeth.
The manner in which that principle had been working during the
intervening centuries was only another illustration of Burke's maxim
about systems founded on the heroic virtues to which we have lately made
reference in this volume. The statute of Elizabeth was based on the
principle that the State, or at least the local authorities, ought to
find relief for all the deserving poor. The duty of making provision for
the deserving poor was left in the hands of those who managed the aff